Tech News Stop - Sharing by Wasim Akhtar

::::HP to lay off about 27,000, profit slides 31 pct::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337827298_temp.jpg" border="0" width="300" height="200" align="left" /></div> Hewlett Packard Co plans to lay off roughly 27,000 employees or about 8 percent of its workforce over the next couple of years to jumpstart growth and save up to $3.5 billion annually, sending its shares 11 percent higher.The company said the layoffs would be made mainly through early retirement and would generate annual savings of $3 billion to $3.5 billion as it exits fiscal year 2014, when the layoffs are expected to the completed.The world's No. 1 personal computer maker, which employs more than 300,000 people globally, also said on Wednesday that it had a 31 percent decline in second-quarter profit and a 3 percent decline in revenue, compared with a year ago.The results, however, were better than Wall Street expectations.Layoffs "adversely impact people's lives, but in this case, they are absolutely critical to the long-term health of the company," Chief Executive Meg Whitman said."This is broad based," she said in an interview. "By design, it will touch all of HP."Whitman said a third of the layoffs would be in the United States. The company will take a pretax charge of $1.7 billion in fiscal 2012 related to the layoffs.Whitman plans to boost spending on research and development, especially in printing and PCs, with the savings from the cost cuts.Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu said the quarter was surprisingly strong for HP, which had missed its own forecast most quarters in the last 18 months and prior to Whitman taking over as CEO."Everyone expected a miss, given what Dell said," Wu said. "It looks like HP is regaining its footing."Dell shares on Wednesday plunged 17 percent following weaker than expected results and a disappointing revenue forecast spurred fears that global tech spending is weakening faster than anticipated.HP itself has been trying to move past the internal upheaval that marked 2011, including the departure of two chief executives.Whitman, a veteran Silicon Valley executive who took the top job last September, has been trying to turn the company around.Whitman said both business leaders and consumers in Europe were worried about the region's economy, which is hurting HP's business. She warned that the European debt crisis was a big "headwind" the company was facing.HP reported second-quarter net income of $1.59 billion, or 80 cents a share, compared with $2.3 billion, or $1.05 a share, a year ago. Revenue of $30.69 billion was down 3 percent compared with the same period last year.Excluding after-tax costs for amortization, restructuring charges and acquisition-related charges, HP said it earned 98 cents a share, compared with analysts' average estimate of 91 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.TABLET LAUNCH FOR HOLIDAYWhitman, who has been at the helm for six months, said the company also plans to launch tablets -- for both consumers and corporations -- later this year."We will have a Windows 8 tablet for the holiday," she said.This would be HP's second attempt in the tablet market. HP killed its previous WebOS-based TouchPad tablet last year after just seven weeks on store shelves, citing poor demand.Whitman also said HP's acquisition of British software company Autonomy for over $11 billion is facing challenges, and results in the division fell short of HP's expectations.HP has moved the division under its chief strategy officer Bill Veghte. Autonomy founder Mike Lynch will be leaving the company.Results from HP's other divisions were also weak.Sales from the personal systems group, encompassing PCs, were flat with a decline in sales to consumers offsetting revenue from commercial clients.Revenue from its bread-and-better printing group, which is being merged with the PC group, fell 10 percent after weak consumer and corporate demand."We improved the channel inventory to within an acceptable range," Whitman said on a conference call, referring to the printing group. "However, we continue to face a weak demand environment."Sales of enterprise servers, storage and networking equipment fell 6 percent.HP shares rose to $22.35 after hours after ending down 3.2 percent at $21.08.

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::::Obama orders agencies to shift services to mobile apps::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337827233_temp.jpg" border="0" width="300" height="200" align="left" /></div>President Barack Obama, hoping to spur U.S. innovation in the explosive field of mobile communications, on Wednesday ordered all major federal agencies to make many more of their services available on mobile phones within the next year."Americans deserve a government that works for them anytime, anywhere, and on any device," Obama said in a statement.His administration is eager to hasten government adoption of new technology since showing itself to be highly tech-savvy after running a 2008 election campaign that was widely praised for the innovative way it used the Internet and social media.Analysts welcomed the move, but voiced scepticism it could be effective unless Obama also freed up more government broadband spectrum to the private sector."American citizens won't be better served by government technology and digital services unless more government spectrum is made available to enable these technologies and services," said Mobile Future Chairman Jonathan Spalter.His coalition includes AT&T Inc, Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile, Cisco Systems Inc and Qualcomm Inc.The presidential order tells each agency to make at least two services relied upon by the public available on mobile phones within 12 months.What this means in practical terms is a massive expansion in public access to government data, from healthcare and education to energy and public safety, which the administration hopes will boost jobs by encouraging innovation.But public interest group Free Press said what was really needed from Obama were communication laws and competition policies that make broadband more accessible to everyone."Government's most important role in this space is not as a content creator," said Free Press policy director Matt Wood.DIGITAL STRATEGYThe Obama administration also released a new digital strategy on Wednesday that it said would drive a more efficient and coordinated delivery of federal services on mobile devices.This will require agencies to set up websites to provide online resources for outside developers, and make government information open and machine-readable by default."The initiatives we're launching today will make government data resources even more accessible to the public and to entrepreneurs who can turn these data into services," said U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park.Analysts said Obama's directive was a logical step to move government further into the digital world."But it also could end up putting more pressure on him to move more government spectrum into the market to support wireless broadband," said Guggenheim Securities analyst Paul Gallant.In 2010, the administration said it would make 500 megahertz of spectrum available in the next 10 years for broadband.The growing use of wireless devices like Apple Inc's iPad tablet and Google Inc's suite of Android-powered smartphones has added to the urgency to find more space on the airwaves.Mobile Future's Spalter said he was troubled that the 27-page strategy memorandum did not once mention spectrum.The Federal Communications Commission said earlier in the month it was ready to work with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which manages government spectrum, to gauge if it was feasible for government users to share the same spectrum with commercial wireless operators.U.S. Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel said on a call with reporters that freeing government airwaves for use by commercial wireless providers is a conversation the White House wants to have with the FCC, NTIA and the Commerce Department."America as a country is going to be faced with a spectrum crunch, and we need to really look at opportunities there," VanRoekel said.Medley Global Advisors analyst Jeffrey Silva said the sweeping government shift to mobile apps may serve as a tacit heads-up to federal agencies that the administration eyes mobile broadband as the future of the Internet."Still, the power of the presidency and Obama's use of the bully pulpit do not guarantee that a significant amount of additional spectrum will be returned by the Pentagon and other federal departments anytime in the near future," Silva said. "It will be trench warfare."

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::::Google did not infringe Oracle patents - jury::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337827169_temp.jpg" border="0" width="300" height="200" align="left" /></div> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/reuters/INtechnologyNews/~4/HexRFE0QzoE" border="0" width="1" height="1" />Google Inc's Android mobile platform has not infringed Oracle Corp's patents, a California jury decided in a high-stakes trial fought by the two Silicon Valley giants over smartphone technology.Because the same jury could not unanimously agree on the copyright allegations earlier in the case, the latest verdict on patents effectively puts an indefinite hold on Oracle's quest for damages.The verdict was delivered on Wednesday in a San Francisco federal court, and confirmed by a Google spokesman. An Oracle attorney declined to comment on the decision.The jury found earlier that Oracle had proven copyright infringement for parts of Java. But the jury could not unanimously agree on whether Google could fairly use that material.Oracle sued Google in August 2010, saying Android - the world's most used mobile software - infringed on its intellectual property rights to the Java programming language. Google says it does not violate Oracle's patents and that Oracle cannot copyright certain parts of Java, an "open-source" or publicly available software language.While Oracle is seeking about $1 billion in copyright damages, the patent damages in play are much lower. Before trial, Google offered to pay Oracle roughly $2.8 million in damages on the two patents remaining in the case, covering the period through 2011, according to a filing made jointly by the companies.For future damages, Google proposed paying Oracle 0.5 percent of Android revenue on one patent until it expires this December and 0.015 percent on a second patent until it expires in April 2018. Oracle rejected the settlement offer.During trial, U.S. District Judge William Alsup revealed that Android generated roughly $97.7 million in revenue during the first quarter of 2010.Without a finding against Google on that fair use question, Oracle cannot recover damages on the bulk of its copyright claims. And Alsup has not yet decided on several legal issues that could determine how a potential retrial on copyright would unfold.Shares in Oracle stood largely unchanged at mid-afternoon at $26.41. Google stock was up 0.7 percent at $604.81.The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, is Oracle America, Inc v. Google Inc, 10-3561.

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::::Shareholders sue Facebook, NYSE comes calling::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337827102_temp.jpg" border="0" width="300" height="200" align="left" /></div>The fallout from Facebook Inc's messy initial public offering widened on Wednesday as shareholders sued the social network and its bankers while a trading firm revealed a massive loss on the shares and threatened to seek "remedies."The Nasdaq stock exchange also came under further pressure as a source close to the situation told Reuters that NYSE Euronext had opened discussions with Facebook about a potential stock listing there. Nasdaq also faces litigation from angry investors.Facebook's listing, envisioned as a crowning moment for an eight-year-old company that has become a business and cultural phenomenon, has instead turned into a legal and public relations fiasco for the company and its lead underwriter, Morgan Stanley.Serious trading glitches interfered with the stock's opening on Friday, and subsequent revelations by Reuters that analysts had quietly reduced their revenue forecasts prior to the IPO have led to accusations of selective disclosure of material information. The shares closed at $32 on Wednesday, 15 percent below the IPO price.A lawsuit filed on Wednesday seeking class-action status alleged that defendants -- including Facebook, its Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co -- concealed "a severe and pronounced reduction" in revenue growth forecasts resulting from greater use of Facebook's app or website through mobile devices.It also accused Facebook of telling its bank underwriters to "materially lower" their forecasts for the company. The lawsuit said the underwriters disclosed the lowered forecasts to "preferred" investors only."The main underwriters in the middle of the roadshow reduced their estimates and didn't tell everyone," said Samuel Rudman, a partner at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, which brought the lawsuit. The firm is among the leading securities class actions firms in the country."I don't think any investor in Facebook wouldn't have wanted to know that information."Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesman, said: "We believe the lawsuit is without merit and will defend ourselves vigorously."Morgan Stanley had no comment. It said on Tuesday that Facebook IPO procedures complied with all applicable regulations and were the same as in any initial offering.Also on Wednesday, Knight Capital Group Inc said its second-quarter results will be hurt by losses related to numerous issues during the listing. The firm, which provides electronic trading services to brokers and retail clients, foresees a pre-tax loss of $30 million to $35 million related to the IPO.The company has submitted claims for financial compensation from Nasdaq OMX and is considering all legal remedies available, Knight Capital said in a regulatory filing.Knight Capital's announcement may be a sign of things to come as other traders and investors tally up losses from the trading problems.Nasdaq OMX was also sued on Tuesday by an investor who claimed the exchange operator was negligent in handling orders for Facebook shares. Morgan Stanley said it is reviewing Facebook trades and would adjust prices for some retail customers who overpaid.A source familiar with the situation told Reuters that NYSE Euronext had opened discussions with Facebook about a potential stock listing there, and that the social networking giant was considering its options.The largest U.S. exchange later denied it was discussing a full listing transfer with the company, which became the first U.S. company to debut with a market value of over $100 billion.IPO INVESTIGATIONSWednesday's lawsuit, one of several that have been filed around the country, was brought in New York on behalf of Dennis Palkon and Brian Roffe, who said they respectively bought 1,800 and 200 Facebook shares at the IPO price, and Jacob Salzmann, who said he paid more than $123,000 on May 18 for 2,961 shares at an average $41.77 each.Research analysts at several underwriters lowered their forecasts for Facebook after the Menlo Park, California-based company in a May 9 prospectus cautioned investors about the possible impact of users shifting to mobile platforms. Facebook currently makes little revenue from mobile ads.Citing people with direct knowledge of the matter, Reuters reported this week that, during its IPO road show, Facebook advised analysts for its underwriters to reduce their profit and revenue forecasts.The lawsuit named underwriters Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Bank of America Corp as having cut their forecasts after the May 9 prospectus was filed, but that these cuts were not publicly revealed before the IPO.The plaintiff-shareholders called the disclosures of Facebook's business risks inadequate, saying that analysts knew more about these risks and cut their business outlooks accordingly -- for the benefit of only some investors, not all."If Facebook told analysts to materially lower their forecasts, it should have told the entire market," said Antony Page, a professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. "We need to know what exactly was said to the analysts, and determine how different Facebook's public story was from its private story."Regulators including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin are now looking into how the IPO was handled. The U.S. Senate Banking Committee is also reviewing the matter."If Facebook faced a known and particularly salient risk, boilerplate language would be insufficient," said Elizabeth Nowicki, an associate professor at Tulane University Law School and a former SEC lawyer.Bank of America and Barclays Plc are also defendants in the New York case, as are Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman and several Facebook directors.Bank of America spokesman Bill Halldin, Barclays spokesman Mark Lane and Goldman spokesman Michael DuVally declined to comment. JPMorgan did not respond to requests for a comment.The case is Brian Roffe Profit Sharing Plan et al v. Facebook Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-04081.

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::::TCS, Infy, Wipro to use NAC-Tech test for hiring::::

<img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337717275_temp.jpg" border="0" alt="Image" align="left" /> In a move to filter the 'quality' of engineering graduates hired,  software majorsTCS , Infosys, Wipro, Accenture, Cognizant andHCL have agreed to use the NAC-Tech test or the Nasscom assessment for competence in technology test. According to ET Now, this test will serve as a pre-requisite for entry level hiring in the technology sector. Industry body Nasscom has been pushing for the adoption of this initiative. This has been done in light of the fact that huge retraining costs are incurred by the IT companies. The scores of this test will be calibrated with the internal test that these companies will conduct for all the engineering students. The additional filtering mechanism will improve the quality of intake, Nasscom hopes. The placement season for engineering students will start in the month of September. With this important development, it needs to be seen whether IT companies will hire in large numbers that they usually do. Notwithstanding the economic uncertainty, fresher recruitment and salary levels saw an upward trend in the IT and ITeS sector during the January-March quarter of 2012 compared to other sectors in the same period, a survey showed. The survey findings reveal that IT and ITeS Sector had recruited 24 per cent freshers in the last quarter of FY'12 of their total hiring, a surge of 9 per cent from the year-ago period. Besides, salary level in campus placements was up by 8 per cent in IT and ITeS. Overall, recruitment index has risen by 11 per cent in January-March quarter to 24 per cent. Among the nine industries surveyed, infrastructure sector recruited 21 per cent freshers, followed by engineering and manufacturing and automobile sector (18 per cent), retail (16 per cent) and FMCG (14 per cent). "The fresher's hiring trend this year looks upbeat with IT majors recruiting more compared to last year. The fresher's recruitment market had seen growth in terms of number of hiring and salary," said Rajesh Kumar, CEO, MyHiringClub, which conducted the survey. In terms of geography, Bangalore, hub of IT and ITeS companies witnessed a maximum fresher recruitment of 24 per cent followed by Delhi-NCR (21 per cent), Chennai (18 per cent), Mumbai (15 per cent), Hyderabad (13 per cent) and Kolkata (10 per cent).  

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::::ValueFirst Messaging buys Way2Online for Rs 200 crore::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337716416_temp.jpg" border="0" align="left" /></div> ValueFirst Messaging, an enterprise mobility and communication services company, has acquired Way2Online Interactive that owns way2sms.com and 160by2.com - websites used by millions to send free text messages to any mobile phone in the country. The websites became prominent when telecoms regulator Trai imposed a rule in September last year that barred users from sending more than 200 text messages a day. The all-cash deal that industry sources reveal to be close to Rs 200 crore marks the third complete acquisition by the mobile value-added services player since 2009. The deal has been funded through internal accruals and investment from US-based New Enterprise Associates and Headland Asian Ventures Fund (formerly HSBC Private Equity). With this, the Gurgaon-based company has acquired a customer base of around 37 million unique users, second only to Facebook's 50 million in India. "We want to become India's largest digital media company. This acquisition completes our set of offerings. It will help our clients to reach out new customers and for us to get bigger deals. We will be able to compete with larger companies out there like Network 18 and Rediff," ValueFirst Group's chief executive officer Kumar Apoorv told ET. On a marketing level, the websites will remain as independent brands but since both offer practically same services, the back-end will be integrated on to a single platform within ValueFirst. The integration will require around eight to 11 months, during which Raju Vanapala, the owner of Way2Online Interactive, will exit with his team of 50 people based out of Hyderabad. <table border="1" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="border: 0px"><img class="gwt-Image" src="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/photo/13400435.cms" border="0" /></td></tr></tbody></table> Apoorv added that a differentiation between both the acquired peer-to-peer message websites would have to be created. "We have about 500 million contacts saved on their address books, that means, we have more than half of India's mobile subscribers as our registered users. We will devise a strategy to leverage this around sharable content and make it more social," he said. ValueFirst will hire about 100 people to support functions of the newly-acquired company. It is expecting revenues of around Rs 250 crore this year coming largely from mobile advertising. The company is also planning an initial public offer of around Rs 4,000 crore either on the local stock exchange or Nasdaq. It has not yet filed the draft red herring prospectus, an application to begin preparation for a public listing.

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::::Microsoft puts Azure accelerator in Bangalore to woo startups::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337716140_temp.jpg" border="0" align="left" /></div>In its push to get traction for Windows Azure as a development-and-deployment platform for cloud services, Microsoft is opening an Azure accelerator in its Bangalore office. The goal is to help the company find and help startups across India and Southeast Asia — and get them aboard Azure, Microsoft’s platform as a service. The center will also serve European startups.Microsoft Windows Azure is behind the eight-ball  – while it claims thousands of new users every month, it lags Amazon Web Services in adoption. By far. While AWS is infrastructure as a service (IaaS), it also offers some PaaS capabilities. And, over the past few years, Amazon has evolved into the development platform of choice for many startups that are able to spin up and down compute instances fast and cheap to build their products. In addition,  in-house developers at big companies also use Amazon services to quickly build and test new software, often using their own credit cards to fund that work. For that reason, Microsoft is adding more incremental IaaS functions to Azure.<h2 style="margin: 27px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline">Luring developers with credit and perks</h2>For the new Indian effort, Microsoft is inviting startups working on Azure applications to apply to the accelerator before July 1.  Starting September 3, the selected companies will be enrolled in Microsoft’s BizSpark program, which comes with $60,000 in Azure credits, and get workspace in Bangalore and access to Microsoft resources.Microsoft opted for India because of the entrepreneurial ethos there.  Said Amit Chatterjee, managing director of Microsoft India R&D via email:India has a great start-up culture. It has over 5 million developers, a large domestic market, large venture capital available and a fast growing angel investment community. All these factors are driving a vibrant startup ecosystem that is focused on both the India and global market, and demonstrating an increasing maturity in building product companies. We believe these new breed of entrepreneurs will benefit immensely from our Accelerator.<h2 style="margin: 27px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline">Microsoft takes on Amazon, Google for developers</h2>To bolster Azure and to combat Amazon as well as Google, which pitches Google App Engine as a development platform, Microsoft has turned up the volume on its startup recruitment efforts in the U.S. and, as we now see, abroad. In March, Microsoft opened a similar facility in Israel. Stacey wrote about some Microsoft’s startup efforts early this year. The company has also  been active in the Boston area, hosting seminars and other start-up focused events at its Cambridge, Mass., New England Research and Development center (NERD), for example.We’ll probably hear a lot more about Microsoft’s Azure plans at GigaOM’s Structure conference next month, when Derrick Harris sits down to talk with Microsoft Server and Tools Business President Satya Nadella.Jockeying for developers and startups by Microsoft, Google and Amazon for their respective cloud services will reach a fever pitch in the coming months.  Google kicks off its Google I/O Conference in June;  the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference  comes to Toronto in July; and Amazon launches its inaugural developer conference in November. Stay tuned.

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